Prayer Shawl Ministry at First UMC,
Port Isabel, continues to grow

By Sara Plunkett
Member, First UMC, Port Isabel
God is continuing to bless the prayer shawl ministry at First UMC, Port Isabel.
We have blessed our 200th Prayer Shawl in a year and nine months. God’s presence is definitely in this ministry. We give all the glory to God; we are just his hands.
Our first Prayer Shawl was given to Shirley Pike in April 2005, and she died two months later. Her husband donated her Prayer Shawl to the church, and it is visible on the first pew as a reminder of God’s love and Shirley’s legacy of teaching us how to live and die with dignity.
The Shawl Ministry is a movement of ladies who gather twice a month for knitting, prayer and fellowship. Some 15 knitters are very faithful to this ministry.
We meet on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month. We welcome anyone who enjoys knitting,
crocheting or Swedish weaving.
Shawls are knit for literally wrapping recipients in God’s love, grace, comfort and healing through prayer.
Men appreciate being recipients just as much as women. All feel God’s presence in the shawls and in the prayers that went into knitting them. The knitters believe that when they pick up their needles, God already knows who will receive the shawl.
Prayer Shawls are given to people who have serious illnesses, who have lost someone close to them or who are going through a difficult time in their lives. Prayer Shawls have been sent to people in 21 states.
In addition, two women, one from Kuwait and the other from Korea, have received shawls from our church. I guess you could say we have gone global. What an awesome God we have! We want this ministry to reach out to God’s kingdom, excluding no one.
God has provided the yarn through our “Noisy Change” offering the last Sunday of every month, individual donations and the generosity of our knitters. We thank the Lord for allowing us to be part of what he is blessing.
As it says in our mission statement, “Our Prayer Shawl Ministry is as much about a spiritual gift as a physical gift of a shawl. The spirit of God is in the shawl as we pray while knitting and sharing with others.”
First UMC, Port Isabel, started the first Prayer Shawl Ministry in the McAllen District. Since it began, ministries have been added at First UMC, Brownsville; First UMC, Donna; First UMC, San Benito; First UMC, McAllen; and Trinity UMC, McAllen.